Kiska Can Imagine Becoming Prime Minister, But First Things First

President Andrej Kiska, speaking on TV Markiza’s politics show ‘Na telo’ [loosely translated as ‘Tough Questions’] on Sunday, said that he can imagine being prime minister, but there’s no need to deal with this issue at the moment.

Right now it’s important to prevent a potential coalition of the Smer-SD party with the far-right People’s Party Our Slovakia (LSNS) and a planned party that Stefan Harabin has declared from emerging. “Parties such as Freedom and Solidarity (SaS), OLaNO, the Christian Democratic Movement (KDH), Progressive Slovakia (PS), Together and a new, let’s call it Kiska’s party for the time being, should unite their forces and jointly take over power and responsibility for this country and give it back to the people,” said the current president. According to him, the leader of any of these parties would make a good prime minister.

Kiska announced his intention to set up a new party on a social network earlier this week. He hasn’t yet released any specific information about the party, its name or the people that he’ll cooperate with, promising to do so on June 17, after his term in office expires. He’s called on people to join him, as he doesn’t want it to be a one-man party. Kiska characterised his political orientation as centrist.

Kiska confirmed that he’s been meeting ex-premier Iveta Radicova, but didn’t reveal whether he wants to persuade her to join his party.

Kiska believes that his party has the potential to address people who trust him as a person. “If I want to address them, they must clearly know whose party it is, who is in its leadership and in which direction it wants to go,” said Kiska, who said that he decided to set up his own party after talks held with SaS leader Richard Sulik and the leaders of PS and Together.

Concerning the party’s financing, Kiska said he has the capital to found it and plans to contact people who might help him with financing its activities only later.

Reacting to Smer-SD leader Robert Fico’s claim that he’s one of the laziest politicians ever, and that he intends to make a foray into power only to cover up his own tax scandals, Kiska said that Fico has fallen even below Marian Kotleba (LSNS) in terms of public trust and that his attacks are fabricated. “He’s the least trustworthy politician in our country, and I think that nobody takes him seriously any longer,” stated Kiska, adding that he would never form a government with Smer-SD or LSNS.